Author
Topic: A Game Journal Reborn

I finished Bravely Second over the weekend. Here are my final thoughts: The story is good, and less repetitive than the first game's, but at the same time I'm not sure it was as strong as Bravely Default's. I did like how they incorporated the player more this time. The first game was pretty subtle about it, but this one was very overt. The battle system is still just as fun as the first game, but the job system has been downgraded somewhat. It's still fun, and you can develop some pretty powerful characters, but not as good as the first game. The change from 14 job levels to 11 also nerfed some of the old jobs slightly, which was disappointing. In the first game I had a dual-wielding, Dark Knight Tiz, who, with sword magic, could deal around 15,000 damage with a regular attack. I wasn't quite able to do that this time around, but it was still enjoyable nonetheless. The new jobs were mostly disappointing, or simply rehashes of older jobs. I liked Guardian and Exorcist. Hawkeye was okay. Yokai was really just a higher-powered Black Mage because of the -ja spells, and Kaiser, while kind of cool, was very much a double-edged sword.

All in all, I give it an 8 out of 10.

Final jobs:

Yew was Yokai with Time Magic. I'm glad I went that route because Reraise was essential for the last boss fight.

Edea was a Valkyrie with Shamanism. This turned out okay, but the last boss had a dispel skill that kind of made it less useful. Jump is still great and Edea went mostly untouched damage-wise because of it. If I did it again I would probably swap Shamanism for Martial Arts to amp up her attack power somewhat.

Magnolia was a Guardian with Shamanism. Worked out well, but same problem as above with the dispel. I would swap Shamanism with the Dark Arts if I were to play it again because Guardian has high HP and the final boss is weak to dark attacks.

Finally, Tiz was a White Mage with Astral Magic. If I would have known about the dispel though I probably would have gone White Mage with Catmancy to increase his attack options, or possibly Exorcism because of the Tongues command.

- So I did the Valimar battle against a certain Instructor. And I won! First try! Booya! All thanks to Alisa and her CP generating ability. Felt dang epic winning that fight.

- Jusis finally bit it in battle for the first time ever, including my CS1 run. And against a stupid giant Creepy Sheep, no less (by far the cheapest boss fight so far). What an ignominious way for him to get benched. I will miss his Noble Command. But his absence makes room for Emma on my team, who I've equipped very lightly with Scepter MQ and one of the 3 Lost Art quartz I now have. I could make her more of a cannon, but I kinda want to level up Scepter and see what I can do with it. I almost lost Alisa in that same fight (perish the thought!) but her 10% evasion happened to save her from almost-certain death.

- I took out that group of worm things that you're supposed to damage one at a time or they'll earthquake you. I AoE'd them into oblivion anyways and still won. Ready for Operation: Rescue People You Know From CS1, #2!

I know people say that Emma can be the strongest character in the game but I could never get much out of her. She would always get one shotted by tough bosses. I think you gotta put some quick casting time quartzes on her. Jusis is kind of weak but that platinum shield is an incredible skill. Strangely, well maybe not strangely, Sharon was my tank.

- So I did the Valimar battle against a certain Instructor. And I won! First try! Booya! All thanks to Alisa and her CP generating ability. Felt dang epic winning that fight.

- Jusis finally bit it in battle for the first time ever, including my CS1 run. And against a stupid giant Creepy Sheep, no less (by far the cheapest boss fight so far). What an ignominious way for him to get benched. I will miss his Noble Command. But his absence makes room for Emma on my team, who I've equipped very lightly with Scepter MQ and one of the 3 Lost Art quartz I now have. I could make her more of a cannon, but I kinda want to level up Scepter and see what I can do with it. I almost lost Alisa in that same fight (perish the thought!) but her 10% evasion happened to save her from almost-certain death.

- I took out that group of worm things that you're supposed to damage one at a time or they'll earthquake you. I AoE'd them into oblivion anyways and still won. Ready for Operation: Rescue People You Know From CS1, #2!

I know people say that Emma can be the strongest character in the game but I could never get much out of her. She would always get one shotted by tough bosses. I think you gotta put some quick casting time quartzes on her. Jusis is kind of weak but that platinum shield is an incredible skill. Strangely, well maybe not strangely, Sharon was my tank.

When you say Sharon was your tank, you mean Evasion Tank, right? IIRC she has some innate EVA like Fie? Sharon is a ton of fun to use with the Juggler quartz, I'll say. Lots of AoE moves mean lots of status effects. Never gets old. Glad I still have Juggler MQ with me. Was just as hilarious with Gaius when I was locked into using him for a while.

Emma has really helped me get through some of those optional super monster fights (forgot what they're called) where you get the Lost Art quartz. It's her Crescent Shell, though, and not her Arts that do the trick there. But it's kinda tough with Arts specialists in Cold Steel in a way that was never a problem in Sky. If you want to stack EP, EP Cut, Action, and Cast quartz on someone, there's no more room for actually having Arts you can use! The addition of Rare, Super Rare, and Master quartz, though, mitigates that difficulty somewhat, especially the further into the game you go.

Liberated Roer and it was crazy epic. What an awesome chapter. For seemingly no reason I got an AP bonus for going to the Schwarz Drache Barrier before rescuing Irina. So... that was cool. I also came DANGEROUSLY close to facing my first legit loss with Valimar, when I was up against Vulcan in the Goliath. Do all the truly challenging Valimar battles basically boil down to the enemy cheating by getting multiple turns in a row for no reason? Either way, I still won, so... in your face, Vulcan.

On a lighter note, Alisa is hilarious. And so is Rean, for that matter. She's on the verge of openly confessing her feelings and physical attraction to Rean, and yet still doesn't for... reasons I don't understand. And Rean, for his part, continues to play dumb in front of her and yet very clearly is aware of what she's not saying and of their romantic dynamic. Despite pretty much knowing how she feels, he seems content to just be passive toward her and let her make the first move, just like the good little harem protag he is. Blargh. That said, goodness they're adorable together.

Elliott bonding events are seriously the least creative of all, even Gaius. I honestly think Elliott might be the most boring character in the game and his BEs don't change that: "Hey, Rean, there sure are problems aren't there? OH! I have an awesome idea! Let's play music! *and then they played music, the end*"That said, I have never actually used a bonding point to view one, just save scumming. Do they change?

Logged

"You know, you're pretty cool too, Arvis. You like good music, good games, and good tennis." - Divingfalcons

- So I did the Valimar battle against a certain Instructor. And I won! First try! Booya! All thanks to Alisa and her CP generating ability. Felt dang epic winning that fight.

- Jusis finally bit it in battle for the first time ever, including my CS1 run. And against a stupid giant Creepy Sheep, no less (by far the cheapest boss fight so far). What an ignominious way for him to get benched. I will miss his Noble Command. But his absence makes room for Emma on my team, who I've equipped very lightly with Scepter MQ and one of the 3 Lost Art quartz I now have. I could make her more of a cannon, but I kinda want to level up Scepter and see what I can do with it. I almost lost Alisa in that same fight (perish the thought!) but her 10% evasion happened to save her from almost-certain death.

- I took out that group of worm things that you're supposed to damage one at a time or they'll earthquake you. I AoE'd them into oblivion anyways and still won. Ready for Operation: Rescue People You Know From CS1, #2!

I know people say that Emma can be the strongest character in the game but I could never get much out of her. She would always get one shotted by tough bosses. I think you gotta put some quick casting time quartzes on her. Jusis is kind of weak but that platinum shield is an incredible skill. Strangely, well maybe not strangely, Sharon was my tank.

When you say Sharon was your tank, you mean Evasion Tank, right? IIRC she has some innate EVA like Fie? Sharon is a ton of fun to use with the Juggler quartz, I'll say. Lots of AoE moves mean lots of status effects. Never gets old. Glad I still have Juggler MQ with me. Was just as hilarious with Gaius when I was locked into using him for a while.

Emma has really helped me get through some of those optional super monster fights (forgot what they're called) where you get the Lost Art quartz. It's her Crescent Shell, though, and not her Arts that do the trick there. But it's kinda tough with Arts specialists in Cold Steel in a way that was never a problem in Sky. If you want to stack EP, EP Cut, Action, and Cast quartz on someone, there's no more room for actually having Arts you can use! The addition of Rare, Super Rare, and Master quartz, though, mitigates that difficulty somewhat, especially the further into the game you go.

Liberated Roer and it was crazy epic. What an awesome chapter. For seemingly no reason I got an AP bonus for going to the Schwarz Drache Barrier before rescuing Irina. So... that was cool. I also came DANGEROUSLY close to facing my first legit loss with Valimar, when I was up against Vulcan in the Goliath. Do all the truly challenging Valimar battles basically boil down to the enemy cheating by getting multiple turns in a row for no reason? Either way, I still won, so... in your face, Vulcan.

On a lighter note, Alisa is hilarious. And so is Rean, for that matter. She's on the verge of openly confessing her feelings and physical attraction to Rean, and yet still doesn't for... reasons I don't understand. And Rean, for his part, continues to play dumb in front of her and yet very clearly is aware of what she's not saying and of their romantic dynamic. Despite pretty much knowing how she feels, he seems content to just be passive toward her and let her make the first move, just like the good little harem protag he is. Blargh. That said, goodness they're adorable together.

Elliott bonding events are seriously the least creative of all, even Gaius. I honestly think Elliott might be the most boring character in the game and his BEs don't change that: "Hey, Rean, there sure are problems aren't there? OH! I have an awesome idea! Let's play music! *and then they played music, the end*"That said, I have never actually used a bonding point to view one, just save scumming. Do they change?

I used Fie as an evasion tank and used Falco as the MQ, prob should have used Wing becuase magic would knock Fie out. For sharon I forgot what I exactly did but she had around 30-40% evasion + solid magic defense/evasion, maybe I used Wing, Raven or Katze I forget. I beat the final boss on about the 3rd try when I had Rean + Jusis + another one one side while Sharon was all alone and it was laser focused on Sharon but couldn't knock her out. Even if Sharon gets hit she can take a punch.

I did switch Rean and Laura's MQ and would like to bring in Laura late to finish tough bosses after Rean was exausted.

With Emma, yea that's the problem not enough quartz slots. You could really only power up about 1-2 spells.

Started another playthrough of Ratchet & Clank Up Your Arsenal. A few more planets and I'm done. Love this game.

After many years I've given Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War another go. Got a bunch of game overs when Jamka's adept, charge and critical combo (via killer bow) activated constantly against Sigurd. Currently on chapter 2. Got lucky in the battle with Elliot's squad and all the knights protecting Raquesis are alive. Thinking of making Noishe a father this playthrough as I've heard a lot of praise for him from the FE Facebook group I'm in.

Started another playthrough of Ratchet & Clank Up Your Arsenal. A few more planets and I'm done. Love this game.

After many years I've given Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War another go. Got a bunch of game overs when Jamka's adept, charge and critical combo (via killer bow) activated constantly against Sigurd. Currently on chapter 2. Got lucky in the battle with Elliot's squad and all the knights protecting Raquesis are alive. Thinking of making Noishe a father this playthrough as I've heard a lot of praise for him from the FE Facebook group I'm in.

Naoise could very much be described as 'you could do worse'. He doesn't fit into any of the optimal pairings, but he's a good runner up for some of them and workable for most of the others. His own optimal pairing is with Ayra (who's isn't?), but Erinys and Brigid are good runner ups since both can provide at least one of their children with Pursuit Follow-Up, and Lachesis, Silvia and Tailtiu are probably his last chance at leaving at least one decent offspring. Edain is his worst pairing since Lana does not want to be saddled with Charge, and Lester would rather have the actual Killer Bow than wait until Chapter 8 for a discount version.

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei) - I'm in the area after Valhalla, trying to get enough money to resummon my best demons, whilst grinding so I can fuse two into a more powerful one.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D - I recorded 200 monsters so I opened the second backroom in the library and a great gate for grinding, though its boss pwned me, so I'm back to the story quests.

Kingdom Hearts Union X - Beat the latest Agrabah missions, which more rehash the film's story than the original Kingdom Hearts does.

. It's ok, I wanted to spend my lunch break in tears.It isn't super rare for a video game to make me cry, but it's still not normal. Well done, Falcom.

Battle-wise, I'm sure this has been done over and over, but I stumbled into the hilarious Tauros MQ + Domination quartz combo. I have it on Gaius for now. The shrine boss fight against that Magic Knight was over very quickly. I Arc Slash spammed it down to about half health (probably 90k HP left?) and then Fie managed to Nightmare it (Nightmare 2 quartz plus level 4 Juggler MQ, lololol) so I just popped Gaius in to 200 CP S-Craft it. Nearly 140k damage in one hit (Gaius is level 93). It's things like this that make me love this game.

Logged

"You know, you're pretty cool too, Arvis. You like good music, good games, and good tennis." - Divingfalcons

Gravity Rush: Kat is a cool lead character and the setting/world is fantastic. Some of the mechanics are borked beyond recognition though. Trying to shoehorn using touchscreen (or motion controls...vomit) into a Vita game almost always ends in disappointment.

Fire Emblem - Path of Radiance: I said this on discord, but I was able to borrow this and Radiant Dawn from a friend who made me write him a $200 deposit check for it (because he is weird and awful). I haven't play an FE title before but so far it seems to have been worth it. Tons of fun and I am a huge fan of the perma-death feature. It adds a great deal to the tension of the game, especially if you don't take the cheap way out and save scum in order to keep all of your characters alive (which may as well be cheating in a game like that).

I'm currently at chapter 8 of Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War. One new thing I did in this playthrough is let Sigurd take Ayra's brave sword. He definitely put it to much better use and was even able to ORKO lots of bosses.Got over 50 kills with it no problem.Most of the pairings were ones I've done before like Lewyn and Tailtiu. Gave the leg ring to Sigurd and the knight ring to Sylvia.

It always amuses me to see how the FE series went from this obscure series that wasn't even worth talking about during E3 presentations to a tentpole competing with the likes of Kirby and Metroid. Not bad for a series that would've never left Japan (beyond a failed OVA and a couple of NP articles) had it not hitched a ride with Smash Bros.